<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>to burn and drown (and start anew) by Crudesco</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25660909">to burn and drown (and start anew)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crudesco/pseuds/Crudesco'>Crudesco</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>iron bones &amp; smoke feathers [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Chefs, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Angst, Bad Cooking, Cooking, Everyone Needs A Hug, Food, Gen, How Do I Tag, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Identity Issues, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Tony Stark Needs a Hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:08:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,969</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25660909</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crudesco/pseuds/Crudesco</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tony loses a lot more than just Howard's Michelin star, Steve loses his dinner, and Bucky nearly just loses it. In other words, the restaurant AU that you never knew you wanted, but were always waiting for.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes &amp; Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts &amp; Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>iron bones &amp; smoke feathers [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860688</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>to burn and drown (and start anew)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>TONY</b>
</p><p>
  <i>Winter 2018</i>
</p><p>Friday service is hard, but then again it feels like every service is these days. Oh, the food still goes out just fine and the diners leave perfectly satisfied with their meals like clockwork, but there’s always an undercurrent of tension running throughout the kitchen, uneasy and disjointed. Tony doesn’t need to hear exactly what his kitchen talks about when they’re off the clock to know that they don’t respect him, still cast under the enormous shadow of his father and his star. Figures that even after his death, Howard had still somehow found a way to maintain his iron grip on his life’s work -- Ferrum and its staff are still just as much Howard’s during his afterlife as during his life.</p><p>Tony blows out the tense breath he’s been holding in, focusing instead on the beautiful cut of rolled culatello that he’s carefully slicing into wafer-thin rounds. It had been a bitch to get imported, but he can see the dish unfolding already in his mind’s eye and it’s beautiful, understated yet full in terms of flavor profile and textures. The saltiness and crisp snap of the cured salumi tempered by the mildly sweet airiness of the onion foam, all tied together by the lovely caramelization and toothiness of the roasted brussels sprouts. There’s a certain earthiness that’s almost reminiscent of the foggy lowlands of Parma, but the resemblance ends there, when the expected silkiness and simplicity of naked culatello is instead transformed into a sacrilegious cacophony of textures, discordant and controversial, but there’s something there, a blissful moment where everything just works. It reminds Tony of the fact that he actually loves cooking, loves it so much that it hurts, particularly during the days when he feels like he’s drowning under a menu and kitchen that was never truly his.</p><p>He hears the clicking of heels on tile and without looking up says. “Pepper! Perfect timing, come over here and try this, I swear it’ll be way better than the last time I played around with the dehydrator.” There may or may not have been some minor burns involved as well but eh that was par for the course when you’re working in a commercial kitchen for 17, 18 hours a day. Hazards of the job.</p><p>“Tony,” Pepper sighs, coming to a stop a few feet away and surveying the scene in front of her, “why do we even have a dehydrator again? I know our menu front-to-back and can confidently say that nothing requires a commercial food dehydrator.”</p><p>Tony scoffs, an offended noise in the back of his throat. “Of course we don’t have anything like this on the menu, this is an evolution, light-years ahead of any of that uninspired crap.”</p><p>“That ‘uninspired crap’ got a Michelin star,” Pepper comments wryly.</p><p>“Which is the only reason we still serve almost exactly what we did a year ago,” Tony continues undaunted. “You know we could be serving so much more Pepper, a menu that actually means something.”</p><p>“And you know just as much as I do that menu creation isn’t something that I have any control over as maître d’,” Pepper says calmly, a wrinkle of stress forming across her forehead despite herself. “You can bring it up with Chef Stane if you really want to add something for the next season.”</p><p>“You know how traditional Obie is,” Tony shoots back. “Any time I suggest something that goes beyond classic flavor profiles will send him into heart palpitations.”</p><p>“Right, so where does my role fall in all of this?” Pepper questions dryly, one brow raised.</p><p>“He’s a businessman at heart,” Tony concludes, “if anyone could convince him that it would bring in more covers and increase our bottom line, it would be you.”</p><p>Pepper hesitates for a moment. “Tony, your food is good. I know it is. You know it is.”</p><p>“I’m sensing a but coming here Pepper,” Tony sets down what he’s doing, drumming his fingers against the stainless steel countertop anxiously before visibly forcing himself to stop.</p><p>“The Michelin guide is coming out soon,” she says instead, carefully.</p><p>“What does that have to do with anything?” His tone is careless almost, but his body language betrays him, the skin around his eyes and mouth tightening and his shoulders drawing up. Silence falls between them, but neither of them have to voice their thoughts out loud to know what the elephant in the room is. They both know that it’s just another chain weighing down Tony’s shoulders with the burden of decades of expectations, both spoken and unspoken.</p><p>Finally, Tony snorts bitterly, “it always comes down to that damn star.”</p><p>As if on cue, his phone chimes with an incoming text message, followed by another and then another in close succession.</p><p>He looks down at the screen before mouthing the word ‘Obie’ to her, striding a few paces away to take the call. Pepper busies herself with her iPad, flicking through restaurant emails and spam.</p><p>“What’s up Obie?” Tony says lightly when the call connects, idly picking at a loose thread near the right pocket of his chef whites.</p><p>He somehow makes out the words “Michelin” and “star” and “loss” in the frenzied sentences that follow and everything fades into the background, a distant buzzing ringing in his ears.</p><p>Everything feels out of sorts, like he’s underwater, or that his limbs are sticky with tar and he can’t move them fast enough. Everything spirals inwards to that one line in that one innocuous call. He doesn’t notice that he’s not breathing until Pepper lays a cool hand on his shoulder.</p><p>“Breathe, Tony,” she says.</p><p>Tony takes a huge gasping breath, more out of reflex than anything, but it doesn’t make the tightness in his chest feel any better. He says the words over and over again in his mind, as if repeating them will somehow change what they say or mean.</p><p>A vicious hissing and spitting sound registers faintly in his ears. He doesn’t know what it is. He frowns, a small divot furrowing between his brows as he tips his head to the side.</p><p>“What—”</p><p>“Tony!” Pepper whirls around in alarm, her heels clicking on the tile. “Your food!”</p><p>A strangled noise makes its way out of his mouth as he dashes through the kitchen to the stove, where the fire is still on high and the pot of cream was boiling. The mixture has long since bubbled over the top of the pot and spilled into the sputtering flames below. Tony skids to a stop in front of the mess and nearly topples over, his feet skidding a couple inches on the floor.</p><p>He swears and looks down at the curdled, creamy mess that’s now coating the sole of his shoe. Thoughtlessly, he reaches out and grabs the pot from the stove and transfers it to the table beside the stove while he shuts off the burner with his other hand. The pain of the burn is an afterthought, but when it does finally register, it sears through his fingertips and palm.</p><p>“Fuck!” he yelps, banging his way to the sink. He’s running cold water over the throbbing mess when the acrid smell of burning tickles his nose. The stove? He flicks his eyes over to the mess. The pot is still steaming and thick liquid is still dripping onto the black mat and tile below the burners, but the fire’s completely out. Ugly, blackened clumps crisp up on the sides of the pot (ruined, Tony thinks) and have snuck their way into the smaller, detailed workings of the gas stove. Still, he reasons, it wouldn’t be entirely out of line if the burning smell came from the cream stuck to the stove. He groans internally – that’s going to be hell to clean up.</p><p>The smell worsens and Tony whips his head around this way and that, wracking his mind. The only thing his stupid brain seems to be able to focus on is the loss of the star. And after forgetting about the cream on the stove? Maybe he does deserve to have lost the credit. What kind of chef forgets about the food they’re cooking?</p><p>“Tony?” Pepper calls concernedly from the doorframe leading into the kitchen. “Can I help in any way?” He opens his mouth to reply when it hits him like a shock of lightning.</p><p>“The brussels sprouts!” Tony hurries over to the oven, yanking open the door. A plume of black smoke hits him squarely in the face, and he twists away to cough, his eyes smarting. He can’t see what’s left of the sprouts on the sheet, what with all the smoke, but he’s fairly certain they’re also beyond saving.</p><p>“Mitt, mitt…” he mutters, snatching the nearest tea towel and grabbing the edge of the tray. The tea towel is much too thin, and the heat seeps straight through, worsening the already throbbing pain of his palm. But he grits his teeth and wills himself through it, swinging the tray around onto the countertop. After ascertaining that the tray and its contents aren’t on fire, Tony turns around to hit a few buttons on the oven. Miraculously, it still works and shuts down the heat. He flaps the tea towel around, trying his best to clear the foul-smelling smog.</p><p>When the smoke has mostly cleared, Tony stares at the blackened inside of his oven. It’ll be more than a pain in the ass to clean up, but he’s fairly certain it’ll still be perfectly functional the next time around. The outside is as pristine as ever and if he shut the door it would look every bit like the sleek, industrial beast it’s always been. They were handpicked by Howard himself: professional, sturdy, and always reliable.</p><p>He whirls around in the kitchen, eyes scanning the place just to make sure there are no more fires to put out, literal and otherwise. The culatello seems to be fine where it is in the dehydrator, but he wanders over to check just in case. Everything looks perfect, beautiful even, in the machine. But what does it matter, his brain says nastily, when everything else has burnt to a crisp? Suddenly drained, Tony slumps down the side of the counter and buries his face in his hands.</p><p>“Tony.” Pepper comes to his side, crouching so that she’s level with him. “Your hands,” she says, alarmed, as she zeroes in on the burns. He says nothing, but hears her get up and walk away. He hears the sink run for a moment and then she’s back and wrapping a cool, wet cloth around his hands.</p><p>“It’s gone, Pep, all gone. It’s never going to work.” She doesn’t know which he’s talking about: the restaurant or the food. The stink of burnt food sits heavy in the air, and Tony is exhausted just thinking about the cleanup he’ll have to do.</p><p>“It’s fixable, Tony,” she tells him firmly, rubbing small, soothing circles on his shoulder. He’s silent for a long while. Tony thinks about the restaurant, about Obie, about Howard. He thinks of his kitchen staff and the way they dismiss him with a quick sweep of their eyes. He thinks of the could-have-been culatello dish – the first dish in a long while that he’d been thrilled to make.</p><p>Certainly, the kitchen and restaurant weren’t perfect – far from it. And he had a lot of slack to pick up after his father’s sudden death. But for a single second, the briefest of moments, he’d really thought he could make it into something he could be proud of.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>STEVE</b>
</p><p>
  <i>Winter 2020</i>
</p><p>Steve shucks off his shoes with all of his usual aplomb – which is to say none at all – kicking them into a messy heap by the door, toes pointed every which way. He stares at them for a long second.</p><p>Bucky used to chastise him for it.  “Why you gotta be so lazy? Where’re you goin’ off to in such a hurry?” he’d grumble. “’s not like it takes you more time to hang your coat, line your shoes up, and drop the keys off in the bowl. It’d save you time from checking all your coat pockets every time we go out too.”</p><p>If Steve had to be honest, Bucky had always been the neater of the two. It wasn’t that Steve was messy, per se – at work, he’s the tidiest, most uppity creature to ever grace the office. It’s enough to give even Fury a headache. But as a consequence of having to spend nearly all day micromanaging things, Steve likes to be a little more lax within the walls of his own home. What does it matter if his shoes aren’t lined up neatly if his hit list and targets are? As long as his work remains tidy and neat, he doesn’t care if his keys make their way onto the counter instead of into the bowl near the front door.</p><p>“You make me sound like the world’s messiest slob,” Steve had commented dryly, watching from the kitchen as Bucky bent down to rearrange the shoes to his liking.</p><p>“Am I wrong?” Bucky had retorted. Steve twists his lips wryly as he looks at the mess near his front door. He bends down and arranges the shoes just so, if nothing else but for posterity’s sake. Bucky isn’t here to nag at him anymore. An ache starts up in his chest but he puts a firm lid on the emotions, refusing to let them wander any further.</p><p>He loosens his tie and settles his coat on the back of the couch, promising himself a moment of rest before getting started on dinner. But he’s just barely settled into the couch when his phone buzzes on the coffee table. Steve glares at the offending object, of more than half a mind to just ignore it, when he catches sight of the name on the screen.</p><p>He heaves a sigh worthy of a single mother of eight before hitting “answer” and bringing the phone up to his ear.</p><p>“It’s after hours,” he snips waspishly into the speaker, scooting back into the cushions.</p><p>“Didn’t stop you from picking up, did it?” The baritone voice responds. Fury doesn’t deign to give him time to answer. “I have a new case for you.”</p><p>“I’m booked.”</p><p>“You’ll want this one.”</p><p>“I’m booked.”</p><p>“Yeah, you said that last time and look at where it got you.”</p><p>Steve closes his eyes and massages his aching trapezius. “Give me the rundown.”</p><p>“We have a lead for the mafia group we’ve been tailing for the past two years.” Steve will never admit it, but he perks up slightly at the mention. It’s a case that’s been eluding him for years and he’d had just about enough of it until now. “We have good reason to suspect they’ve taken up residency in a local company and have a mole in business.”</p><p>“So no one else in the company knows.”</p><p>“Precisely.”</p><p>“How did we find out?”</p><p>“We have… an informant.” Steve narrows his eyes.</p><p>“Do I get to speak with them?”</p><p>“No. They requested anonymity.” The divot in between Steve’s brows grows deeper. He blows out a huge, gusty sigh, taking extra care to exhale directly over the speaker of his phone.</p><p>“Send me the files.”</p><p>“I’ll see you tomorrow at six.” The phone goes dead. Steve chucks it away and into the couch with more force than is necessary. He presses a warm palm into the space between his eyes before heading to the fridge to grab a drink and see what he can possibly scrounge up for dinner. He scrunches his nose at the view. “Guess I’m going grocery shopping this weekend.”</p><p>He checks the clock out of habit as he absently tugs out a bulb of wilted garlic and some jarred sauce. Spaghetti is simple and easy enough and he can just top it off with some ground turkey. As he sets about prepping the ingredients, he lets his mind wander. He’s never really been one for cooking, which is decidedly different from not liking food. See, Steve can appreciate good food. But he would say he’s more utilitarian than anything else, so if he winds up having to chew through soggy protein bars and Soylent, so be it.</p><p>His phone pings from the other room while the pan is warming up, so Steve ambles over to pick it up. He promised to himself that he wouldn’t bring work home, but the turkey is taking forever to cook and the garlic won’t heat up fast enough so Steve resorts to thumbing disinterestedly through the file, stopping briefly at the name on the list. Tony Stark. The name pings somewhere distant in the recesses of his mind, but he’s far too tired to actually reach inside and haul it out of all the mess, so he lets it go and continues scrolling. He flips through the actually useful stuff, not really wanting to work on the case. But he also knows it’ll haunt his sorry ass later when he’s trying to go to sleep if he doesn’t, so he dutifully skims the information.</p><p>Huh. He pauses. Buried deep within the legal documents and paper trails is a menu. Unusual, but perhaps not entirely out of character – the top of the case had mentioned that it was most likely a restaurant that was the cover. He glances mournfully at his own sorry little dish, the garlic spitting and hopping on the black surface of the pan. Ever the glutton for punishment, he decides to read through the menu. It’s still part of the case file, he fibs to himself. The menu conjures up the most delicious textures and sensations in Steve’s head, and his mouth waters at the mere thought of the food.</p><p>“Ow, shit!” Splashes of oil and hot garlic on his forearm and the back of his hand snap Steve back to reality. He flaps his burnt hand around frantically and nearly drops his phone into the burning sauce as he lowers the fire on the stove. The garlic is hissing and spitting like some feral cat and he’s fairly certain the turkey is going to be blackened underneath when he flips it. It feels like chaos for the briefest of moments, but once Steve has everything under control, it still feels like he’s missed something.</p><p>“Garlic, spaghetti, turkey; what am I missing?” he rattles off the ingredients under his breath, pointing to each one in turn. He pivots around and around in the small kitchen. There’s grease on the stove and countertops, but he’ll get to that once he’s shoved everything onto a plate. The burns on his skin were hot enough to sting, but not severe enough to cause anything more than a little redness. He glances down. Maybe he spilled something? The floor looks clean. His phone is on the table, thankfully unscathed.</p><p>What’s missing? It’s only once Steve’s stopped looking for whatever is missing that it hits him like a freight train. It’s the silence that unnerves him, the absence of sound, save for his own quickened breath. For as far back as he can remember, all of his cooking disasters had been punctuated by Bucky’s snarky commentary and bemused laughter.</p><p>
  <i>Summer 2006</i>
</p><p>It’s the first time either of them had ever really cooked, Steve remembers. Not that either of them had been slouches in pulling their own weight around the house growing up, but it had always been peel that, chop this. Not actual, proper cooking.</p><p>“Steve, can you get off your ass for once and pull up that how-to YouTube video again,” Bucky snaps, tentatively prodding at the mess of eggs slowly turning a concerning shade of brown in the pan.</p><p>“I was digging out our takeout menus and coupons again,” Steve defends, pulling out his phone anyways to dutifully search for the video again. “Thought it would be good to have a back-up option in case your scrambled eggs turn into charcoal,” he mumbles the last part quietly to himself.</p><p>“You wanna repeat that to my face, punk?” Bucky demands, spinning around and wielding the spatula like it was a weapon.</p><p>The shrill beeping of the fire alarm and the acrid smell of smoke interrupt whatever reply Steve had begun forming.</p><p>“Shit.” They both turned as one to look at the now burning remains of what an overly-smiley YouTuber had confidently proclaimed were ‘foolproof scrambled eggs’. Steve could now equally as confident declare that that was flagrantly false.</p><p>Still, rent is due in just a few days or so and money is tight so they salvage what they can, drenching the sad-looking meal in ketchup and eating around the burned parts. Steve’s sure that at the time, it must have just tasted like a whole lot of ketchup with a side order of burnt sulfur, but the memory has since faded into the comforting feeling of unwavering safety, of knowing that he’s not alone and that he’s got someone watching his back.</p><p>
  <i>Winter 2020</i>
</p><p>Steve’s lips tighten as he looks down again and sees his ground turkey smoking in the pan. Maybe it makes him stupidly sentimental, but he chokes down the spaghetti, chewing and swallowing mechanically in the pathetic hopes that maybe, just maybe he’ll get a fraction of that comfort back again.</p><p>Or maybe he’s just lying to himself, and he’s a glutton for punishment. God knows he deserves it, the aftertaste lingering like ashes stuck to the back of his throat.</p><p>Roughly, Steve scrubs at his face in an attempt to ward off the beginnings of a tension headache and jerks himself up. Frankly, it’s much too late to have second thoughts at this point (in reality, he’s had a thousand second thoughts by now).</p><p>He should’ve known that his penchant for stubbornly charging into things head-first was going to get him in trouble one day, and really he’s not too surprised that his luck had ended up catching up with him one day. He just wishes it didn’t end up with him and Bucky yelling whatever hurtful bullshit they could at each other, culminating in Steve storming off and signing away ten years of his life in the promise of entry into a wildly experimental and expensive medical trial. At the time, he hadn’t realized what ten years of his life had really meant, and by the time he surfaces from the blurred wooziness of the constant injections and surgeries and drug-induced sleep, six months has already passed and he’s told he can’t just go back to his old life. There’s months of physical rehab, then months of exhaustive training and tests. Every second of his life now is carefully monitored and recorded and Steve just...goes. Goes where he’s sent, does what he’s told.</p><p>The sudden sharp crackle and pop of some neighborhood kids playing around with bang snaps makes Steve flinch, remembering that exact moment during his last mission when he’d… when he’d... </p><p>Anyways, he doesn’t reach out to Bucky even whenever he is in walking distance from any of their old haunts. Maybe he would have in some of those first few months and years after, but now it’s just one more regret to add to the ever-growing mental tallies of Steve’s failures.</p><p>He throws out the remnants of his meal in the trash and heads off to get a few hours of unsatisfying, turbulent sleep, the lingering scent of smoke wafting through his small apartment.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>BUCKY</b>
</p><p>
  <i>Summer 2007</i>
</p><p>“Eggs are $0.50 a dozen at the corner shop,” Steve says, entering their shared shoebox of an apartment with his usual fanfare. “Old man Joe said he would set some aside for us until we get our wages in a few days.”</p><p>Bucky doesn’t look up, focused on stirring together a can of tuna with some of the leftover white sauce. “Don’t worry about it, I can drop by tomorrow and pick up some groceries at the same time.”</p><p>“Oh yeah?” Steve snorts, walking around to take a look at what’s bubbling away at the stovetop. “You and what boatload of cash? Last I heard, Dean’s still being as tightfisted as ever.”</p><p>“I’m going to quit that job,” Bucky announces offhandedly, “found something that pays a hell of a lot better than fixing shit for people whose kids go around sticking forks in electrical outlets.”</p><p>“Finally gave into Marilyn’s insistence that you could make a mint off your ugly mug at the local strip joint?” Steve remarks airily. </p><p>“Fuck off Stevie,” Bucky rolls his eyes, turning off the burner. “Saw a sign where that old pizza place used to be. Apparently, it’s some fancy steakhouse now and they were looking to hire a line cook, so I just walked in. Guess I was just in the right place at the right time.”</p><p>“Wait, you were being serious?” Steve chokes on the mouthful of tuna he had stolen from the pot.</p><p>“No shit,” Bucky deadpans.</p><p>“Aw come on, it’s not like it’s the first time you’ve said you were going to quit your gig as a handyman. Can’t blame me for thinking this was one of those times,” Steve pauses. “Seems a little fast though.”</p><p>“Yeah, well the pay is around twice what I earn now. Maybe we’ll finally be able to afford to eat something besides eggs, noodles, and canned tuna,” Bucky emphasizes his point with a final decisive stir.</p><p>“Hey, don’t knock shit on a shingle,” Steve goes in for another bite, pointedly ignoring Bucky’s indignant attempts to get him to use a clean spoon with practiced ease. Steve falls into a contemplative silence, chewing slowly. Abruptly, he asks, “You know you don’t have to worry about helping pay for my hospital bills right? Just because,” Steve’s tone wavers slightly before he forges on, “just because Ma is gone and my body decides to have another flare-up, doesn’t mean you need to be stuck down shit creek with me. I don’t want to be a burden—“</p><p>Here Bucky interjects sharply. “Hey, don’t give me that self-pity again. It’s not like we’re living on the side of the street here. ‘Sides, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now: I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal.”</p><p>Steve looks unconvinced, opening his mouth to continue arguing. </p><p>“Anyways, I think it’ll be kind of fun,” Bucky continues, undaunted. “Learning how to cook; might even pick up some fancy new recipes to try out that you’ll actually like. Lord knows you can’t just eat creamed tuna every day of the week.” Bucky makes a disgusted face at that.</p><p>Steve lets out a choked laugh. “You’ll never be able to convince me that brussel sprouts are actually edible.”</p><p>The growing tension in the room eases and the room goes silent again, filled with only the sounds of the clinking silverware and the humming radiator. It’s a good day.</p><p>
  <i>Winter 2019</i>
</p><p>In the end, it’s the creamed spinach that does him in.</p><p>“You think staring is gonna make it cook faster? Make your sauce!” Bucky barks at the hulking figure. Anton glowers at him from where he’s stooped over the pot, but pivots smartly on his heel and ambles confidently off in the completely wrong direction.</p><p>“Sauce. Saucier station. That’s the meat station,” Bucky says tiredly, scrubbing at his face. They’ve been at it for almost two hours past closing time and Bucky feels no closer to the end of the training session than when they first started. In fact, he feels even further away. Zemo had said Anton would need a refresher on kitchen basics, but Bucky feels fairly confident in saying that the man has never stepped foot inside of a kitchen before.</p><p>Anton about-faces and skids to a stop in front of the skillet, where a mess of dairy, onion, and garlic sits. Oh, this’ll be a treat. Bucky slouches further into the fish station counter, crossing his arms leisurely. He says nothing, watching as the man picks up one ingredient, and then another, uncertainly flitting back and forth between the heavy cream and the butter. He finally decides on the heavy cream, pouring an obscene amount into the tiny skillet.</p><p>Bucky rubs his temple. With any luck, the dish will be edible, which is far more than he can say for the four other newcomers he’s had the lovely misfortune to train. Just last week, one of them had boiled one of his best pots into oblivion and he’d bid it a mournful salute farewell before turning his attention to the small kitchen fire that had erupted. He doesn’t know what the new management thinks it’s doing.</p><p>Anton is still at a loss, splashing hot cream this way and that, but at this point Bucky doesn’t give two shits. It’s nearly two thirty in the morning and his bed is calling. “Mind your spinach,” he all but singsongs maniacally, watching Anton drop his spoon to rescue the overcooked vegetables. He says nothing as Anton sets the pot on the counter, not even bothering to ice the spinach to stop the cooking.</p><p>It’s another ten minutes or so before the final product is presented before Bucky. And in the end, he has to begrudgingly admit that Anton performed marginally better than the rest. He eyes the concoction on the plate while Anton stands nearby, eyes trained on Bucky’s face. Bucky flicks his eyes up past the food and the man to appraise the mess left behind in the kitchen. All told, it’s not a huge mess, perfectly acceptable – maybe even neat – for a home cook. But in a gourmet kitchen? Unacceptable.</p><p>“Clean up the stations and go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Bucky dismisses him.</p><p>“You’re not going to taste?”</p><p>Actually, no, Bucky isn’t going to taste. And fine, that is a little mean of him, Bucky’ll give him that. But he doesn’t really need to taste the dish to know how it turned out, what with the over-boiling and the under-salting, and he’s pretty sure Anton also left out the parmesan and garlic.</p><p>“Later,” Bucky lies with a smile. “I need to talk to Zemo first.”</p><p>He sweeps into the tiny, cramped office and instantly finds himself missing Morita. It’s an explosion of papers and empty coffee cups and instantly gives him a headache. Morita would never have let the office dissolve into such a mess.</p><p>“How is he?” Zemo doesn’t look up from his screen.</p><p>“I’d barely trust him on dishwasher duty, and I’m pretty sure he’d fuck that up too.”</p><p> “He can’t possibly be that bad. How does he compare to the others?”</p><p>“Negligibly better. I’m bailing water out of a sinking ship with a teaspoon,” Bucky says baldly. He runs a hand through his already mussed, greasy hair. The restaurant won’t last two weeks with this crew.</p><p>Two months ago, when Cadenza had officially switched management, they had fired his friturier, which – fine, she’d been underperforming for a while anyways. But Bucky also knew she’d been under a lot of stress recently trying to figure her rent situation. Yeah, he swears too much and occasionally has a bad habit of throwing rotten vegetable ends at people who piss him off, but he’s not a heartless head chef. They could’ve worked things out.</p><p>Zemo had fired his boucher and garde manger in quick succession after that, which Bucky thought was a bit excessive. Still, he said nothing. Maybe they wanted to clean house and start fresh. But last week. Last week. Bucky doesn’t even know where to start.</p><p>They had, of course, reassured Bucky that they would bring in three new hires to replace the people that they’d let go. What they had failed to mention was the sheer level of incompetency oozing from every orifice of their bodies. Then, to add insult to injury, they had fired both his potager and legumier and hired Anton to fill both roles.</p><p>“He can be trained.”</p><p>“Fuck that.”</p><p>Zemo looks up at that, pushing up his glasses and lacing his fingers together. Bucky stares back, equally unyielding.</p><p>“What was wrong with my previous staff?” Bucky demands. “And if you do want to replace them, why aren’t I included in these decisions? I don’t know where you’re finding these men, but none of them know how to cook worth a damn.” He’s fairly certain he knows why, but admitting, even silently to himself, puts a sour taste in his mouth and sends a prickle of unease down his spine.</p><p>He may be a chef, but he’s not stupid; no restaurant owner worth his salt is going to hire kitchen staff that doesn’t know how to cook. A lot of things aren’t adding up and Bucky’s fairly certain it’s probably not a good sign when a bunch of men in charcoal suits filter into the restaurant after hours, muttering in hushed voices under their breaths. He’s not even sure he was supposed to know about the meeting, but he’d be damned if he breathed a word about it to Zemo or anyone else.</p><p>“They can be trained,” Zemo repeats, a hard edge of finality in his tone. “Surely you must have started somewhere.”</p><p>“Not in a gourmet kitchen,” Bucky mutters. “Look, I’ve tried.” He shakes his head.</p><p>“We understand that these are not ideal circumstances, Mr. Barnes. But we have bigger and better plans for Cadenza. It is not easy for everyone, myself included. But we are attempting a new, innovative start for the restaurant. You know how it is when you try to raise something from the ground up. Try to see that.” It’s the same lines he’s fed Bucky every week since the change.</p><p>Bucky looks up at Zemo from where he’s picking at his nails. He catches a glimpse of the blank, glassy eyes and all of a sudden it’s as if the energy drains from Bucky. There’s no point.</p><p>“Right.” He pushes himself away from the doorframe he’d been leaning on. “My work is done. I’m heading out.”</p><p>“Thank you for understanding, Mr. Barnes. We will see you tomorrow morning at the same time, and resume our training of the new hires in the evening.” Zemo’s smile is Cheshire-like, all teeth. Bucky leaves the office.</p><p>“Inventory?” The word floats out with him.</p><p>“Accounted for,” Bucky waves a weary hand in the general direction of the office, yanking at his apron straps with his other hand. He doesn’t bother to see if the kitchen is cleaned up.</p><p>He ducks into the locker room, deftly twisting the lock on his cubby and throwing the squeaky door open with a clang. He reaches in to grab his keys and miscellany and then pauses, bunched-up apron in his other hand. Bucky pockets his items, then stares hard at his dirty apron. Normally, he’d have already chucked the balled-up fabric into the cubby, but something stops him this time.</p><p>“It’s never going to work, is it?” he murmurs to the cloth.</p><p>Pushing aside the exhaustion and frustration, he allows himself to feel a fleeting pang of loss for the world he’s about to leave behind. Not because of Zemo or any of his imcompetent cronies, God no, but for all the good memories he did have of the place, of being taught patiently by Morita on how to make his first bechamel sauce, of having knife basics drilled into his head until it was second nature, of long nights and most of all, that deep sense of unity and teamwork that came with a well-oiled professional kitchen where everyone was operating on one wavelength.</p><p>He tosses his apron into the cubby for the last time, pivots on his heel, and leaves behind the restaurant he’s worked for all these years.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>boucher: the boucher is in charge of preparing all meats and poultry before they are delivered to their respective stations for preparation in menu dishes<br/>culatello: made in Parma, a province in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, culatello is a type of slowly cured boneless ham<br/>friturier: the friturier handles any foods that must be cooked in oils or other animal fats<br/>garde manger: the chef garde manger is in charge of the cold food preparation area, which typically includes foods such as salads, hors d'œuvres, appetizers, canapés, pâtés and terrines<br/>maître d’: short for maître d’hotel, a maître d’ manages the front of house in a restaurant<br/>saucier: also known as a sauté chef, a saucier prepares sauces, stews, and hot hors d'œuvres</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>